Note 55 — Chapter II

"English in Ireland," vol. ii., p. 177. Mr. Lecky thus succinctly states the particulars attending the breach of the Linen Compact:—"The main industry of Ireland had been deliberately destroyed because it had so prospered that English manufacturers had begun to regard it as a competitor with their own. It is true, indeed, that a promise was made that the linen and hempen manufacture should be encouraged as a compensation, but even if it had been a just principle that a nation should be restricted by force of law to one or two forms of industry, there was no proportion between that which was destroyed and that which was to be favoured, and no real reciprocity established between the two countries." Mr. Lecky having stated the antiquity of the linen manufacture and its vicissitudes in Ireland, and having mentioned that "in 1700 the value of the export of Irish linen amounted to little more than £14,000," thus proceeds:—"The English utterly suppressed the existing woollen manufacture in Ireland in order to reserve that industry entirely to themselves, but the English and Scotch continued, as usual, their manufacture of linen. The Irish trade was ruined in 1699, but no legislative encouragement was given to the Irish linen manufacture till 1705, when, at the urgent petition of the Irish Parliament, the Irish were allowed to export their white and brown linens, but these only to the British colonies, and they were not permitted to bring any colonial goods in return. The Irish linen manufacture was undoubtedly encouraged by bounties, but not until 1743, when the country had sunk into a condition of appalling wretchedness. In spite of the compact of 1698, the hempen manufacture was so discouraged that it positively ceased. Disabling duties were imposed on Irish sail-cloth imported into England. Irish checked, striped, and dyed linens were absolutely excluded from the colonies. They were virtually excluded from England by the imposition of a duty of 30 per cent., and Ireland was not allowed to participate in the bounties granted for the exportation of these descriptions of linen from Great Britain to foreign countries."—"Eighteenth Century," vol. ii., pp. 211-212. See also, "An Argument for Ireland," by J. O'Connell, M.P., pp. 147-154.